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This is the podcast for us dance teachers balancing our teaching job with other jobs, commitments, and just life in general! We don't need to know how to run the whole studio, work with students 20+ hours a week, or win big at competitions; we just want practical advice and real conversations about how to be the best dance teachers we can be with the little time we have with our students. Join Maia on the casual dance teacher's podcast and in the casual dance teacher's network on Facebook.
Maia
Hello and welcome to the Casual Dance Teachers podcast. This is your host, Maia. Today I'm diving into a brand new topic for the podcast.
We're talking tap. I could not have asked for a better guest. Oh my gosh.
I have like the queen of tap here today, Christine Denny. Now I am going to get a little bit into this introduction, so bear with me here, but if you're not already familiar with Christine, I feel like we really have to do her justice with all of her many, many accolades and her vast, vast experience. Christine Denny was a founding tap teacher at the famous Brent Street Studios in Sydney, Australia, where she taught for over eight years.
She also had six years with ED5 International as well as guest masterclasses all over Australia for the past 26 years. Christine is the director of her own company, Rhythm Works Oz, and has performed all over Sydney with them. She's also performed as a guest faculty member with the Australian Tap Festival in 2015 in Melbourne.
A highlight of her career was performing in Dane Perry's famous Eternity Tap segment in the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympics and also working on the sound recording of this event in 2000. Christine also has a rich background in journalism as a regular columnist for Dance Train and Dance Life and the host of the On the Couch with Christine interview series, where she chatted with industry legends about their lives and projects. Christine is also an in-demand choreographer and adjudicator, having choreographed for Doreen Byrd College of Performing Arts in the UK, where she did her tertiary study, as well as all across the entire East Coast of Australia.
She's adjudicated the famous City of Sydney McDonald's Performing Arts Challenge many times and also judges regularly on the panel at the charity event, the Kids Express Dance Challenge, and has worked as a judge for Dance Life Unite. Without further ado, let's talk tap with Christine Denny. Welcome, Christine.
Thank you so much for being here. I'm so excited to talk to you.
Christine
Oh, yeah, it's great to be here. I love chatting to people all over the world about everything tap because it's one of my biggest passions in life. So fantastic. Yeah.
Maia
Oh, I'm so glad to hear that. And I really don't know much about tap. I actually have started taking tap as an adult. So I'm like a beginner adult tap dancer, which is very exciting. And I love the art form, but I'm certainly not an expert. So I'm hoping that you can share your expertise and maybe starting with just a quick overview if you can, because I know you have tons of experience of just how you came to be a tap expert and where you are now in your career.
Christine
Yeah, so I learned tap dancing from my mother because my mother had a dance school. She did classical ballet, jazz and tap. And so I actually started learning dancing when I was about three because I had little turned in legs and the doctor suggested that I start dancing as soon as possible to try and turn my legs around.
So, yeah, I did tap dancing and ballet and I was just naturally good at tap. I just had naturally good rhythm. And so I loved it.
When you put in a big effort and you get out a good result, you tend to love things more. Whereas ballet, I put in a big effort, but I was a little squat sort of child with turned in legs. So tap dancing just really suited me.
And I always found rhythm just really a wonderful way to express yourself. That's wonderful. And then I went to a performing arts college after that in the UK and had a wonderful tap teacher there.
She just had such a passion for teaching. And that really ignited my passion for teaching. And I just love the way that she was able to convey rhythm and convey how to stay in time with the music and the depth of what you were doing, making sure that you had a visual that matched the rhythm like so you had dynamics visually and rhythmically, because that's what I feel makes a really strong tap dancer when you have that synergy of the visual and the rhythm and it comes together.
And so for the person watching, it's quite dynamic and powerful. Yeah. And so then I started teaching tap dancing, which I didn't really intend to do.
I sort of fell into that over here in Australia. My sister was an amazing performer, and she was in 42nd Street, the musical, and she met a lot of great tappers in that environment. And some of them had a big dance studio, a famous studio.
It's quite famous now called Brent Street, and it was just on a big American dance show. So back in its beginnings, I started teaching tap dance there, and I had like one hour a week. And then that grew into teaching all their junior tap and their full-time performing arts students.
And through that, I then got a really great reputation, and I started writing magazine articles for Dance Train magazine all about tap. Then I started working with Clint Salter, who's now known for Dance Studio Owners Association. He set up this huge global dance studio owners association.
But at the time when I met him, he ran a business called Dance Life, which was an online dance magazine. So I started working with him as a tap expert and interviewing people in all different dance genres about dance. And then after that, then I wrote my own tap dance program.
So in Australia, a lot of people do a syllabus. So it's like a set series of levels, and the children start, say, at five years old in tiny tots, and then they'll work through. And there's a lot of different syllabus available.
And so I wrote my own called Tapatak Oz, which has 13 levels, and it can be used as an exam program, or it can just be used as a wonderful progressive set of levels to learn the art of tap dancing.
Maia
Oh, wonderful. So I did want to ask you about that. I'm really coming from the lens primarily of ballet. I also teach modern, but both of those have, you know, certain steps that we look for, especially ballet. I think so much of the ballet syllabus is like, can you do this step, this step, and you progress right through.
But so often, I think there's more emphasis on that than on the rhythm portion, musicality, how well can you dance to different time signatures and tempos and things like that. So I'm curious, with a tap syllabus, what are the benchmarks? Is it just based on steps? Is it based on steps and certain rhythm? And how do you measure the dancer's ability musically?
Christine
Yeah, I think when it comes to tap dancing, it's a very unique genre. There's so many different ways to tap. And the American style of tap is quite different to the Australian style of tap and the British style of tap, although it is becoming a little more homogenized now as the American style, with all the tricks and stuff, is really spreading to the other corners of the planet. And I think that's with the advent of technology, because say in Australia, I grew up in a little small country town. We didn't have the opportunity to watch videos of what was going on in other parts of the world, nor did we have the money to, in those days, get on a plane and fly to America to see what was happening there or see what's happening in Britain.
So because of that, people are able to learn a lot more. So the vocabulary of tap has just expanded and exploded out of the box. And I think that question would be answered differently by any tap dancer that you asked, because it very much depends on what is the tap that you're doing in your school or in your world and whether you're choosing to pursue the really high level, really high level tap dancing.
So, you know, what you see people like Sarah Reich and Savion Glover and Jason Samuel Smith and Kaley and Kelsey Carr and all those sort of people here in Australia, Breanna Taylor, the tap dogs, Jessie Rasmussen, those people are at a different level. They're at a really elite, elite level that most people will not aspire to that, and they wouldn't probably enjoy going to that elite level. But there's a lot of tap from, you know, rudiments all the way through that people can very much enjoy.
So it really depends what level you're aiming to be at and what you're wanting to sit at. It'd be like saying, do you want to compete in the Olympics for, I don't know, gymnastics, or do you just want to enjoy gymnastics? So you can still do quite a high level of tap without, I feel, going to that extreme elite level. But obviously, there is technique that is fundamental, no matter, I believe, to whatever style you're doing.
And I think a lot of the technique that makes tap good does come down to your understanding of rhythm and able to convey, you know, the music and the style that is being used. So if you're tapping to modern, funky music, then your beats have to be a lot heavier. So like if you're tapping to bring in the noise, bring in the funk, that style of tap, or the tap dogs, you need to be tapping heavy with really strong accent.
Your arms need to be more modern and angular, and your whole sensibility has to embody that modern tap. But then if you're doing anything goes, or you know, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, you're going to be tapping more light. Your body's going to be held in a more classical form.
Your arm lines are going to be very Broadway style. So tap is an incredibly complex art form, and you just have to recognise what style of tap are you doing. And whoever's teaching you at the time, your job as a tap student is to embody the flavour of the tapping that that teacher or choreographer is trying to convey.
So in my syllabus program, if people are choosing to do exams, which is only a very small portion, a lot of people, teachers just use the program as a tap program with great progressions in their school. But if they are doing the exams, they get a mark based on their rhythm, timing, phrasing, their own creativity, because I get the students to add their own introduction to the set choreography. So they might add an umbrella or a hat or a cane.
I'm trying to get people to think, like, what is this music? What is it saying? What does it say to me? How am I going to interpret the steps and the rhythms? So in my program, my benchmarks could be different from other people's, but of course, clear rhythms, big in time with the music. If you're doing acapella, so unaccompanied tap, that you can really hold the time steady, coming in and out of time in the pauses and just having good technique. So you're up on the balls of your feet.
You can hear the rhythms clearly and understanding rhythms. So whether it's an even rhythm, for instance, or an accented rhythm, is it syncopated? Is it crossed over the phrase? You know, just standard tap dancing things, I think. Yeah.
Maia
Yeah. Thank you. And do you have any specific drills or activities that you would recommend to help improve tap dancers rhythm?
Christine
Rhythm is a difficult thing to teach for people if they don't have natural rhythm, but that is the skill of the teacher.
I think explaining where the counts are can be helpful. And when you're using your voice to convey to the student, like, you know, one, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, like using your voice, using your hands to convey the rhythm. A good idea if you're teaching a class is to have one group doing just a basic rhythm.
So if it was a swing rhythm, they might be doing slap heel, slap heel, slap heel, slap heel. And then the other group might be doing the combo, which might be, you know, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, slap heel, slap heel on the other side. And then if it was a rock rhythm, you have one group maybe just doing, you know, what you call paradiddles, or we call heels.
So it's like da-ga-da-ga-da-ga-da-ga-da-ga-da-ga-da-ga-da-ga. And then the other group might be going, you know, boom, boom, bop, ba-doom, ba-doom, bop-ba-dugga-dugga-dugga-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-doom-doom, boom, boom, bop, whatever. And so that can be a very helpful way for people who are trying to understand the rhythm to see how it fits within the time by having one group performing the time and the other group doing the rhythm that sits within the time, if that makes sense.
Maia
Yes, I'm a little triggered by this because, not really, but one thing that I struggle with in my sort of beginner journey as a tap dancer is that I am so married to counts. And I know you said it's important for tap dancers to hear and understand the counts, but I know dancers in general, some are more, you know, the way that you were singing the rhythm just now, ba-ba-da, they just hear it more musically and they don't necessarily count it. And then that drives me bonkers because I am only counts.
I need to know, is it on the one E? And if I don't know, I physically struggle so much. And I'm just curious what your experience is with tap dancers. Do most rely on counts? Do most rely just on the feel of the music? And what's your preference as a teacher?
Christine
I think to be a good teacher, you should be able to do both. A lot of teachers who are predominantly performers do find it hard to count because rhythm is just innate and intrinsic to them. And so they'll just be like, you know, ba-ba-da-ba-da-ba-ha-ha-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. But I always, because I am predominantly a teacher and I love to impart knowledge and I like to see people get it.
I don't like it being a mystery to my students. So I know how to count. So I'll be like one E and a two E and a five, a seven and a one, two, three, four, five, and a seven, eight, one, three, five, seven, one, two, and three, a five, six, a seven, eight, one.
So I like the student to know this is your one, this is your eight. This is going over the phrase. And that is my gift as a teacher is that I am able to count and I'm able to explain the rhythms to my students so they can understand them and get them.
I remember being in classes as a student and no one around me being able to get what was going on. And then when the teacher left, then they were saying to me, what is that? And then I'd explain it and they'd go, oh, and that's the art of, I think, being a good teacher. But again, it depends what level do you want to be teaching at? Some people don't want to teach at that level where they have to explain with counts.
They like just going dugga, dugga, dugga. But I'm always in the class saying, what count? Is that on the one? Is that on the eight? Because to me, knowing the counts really anchors the rhythm and I know where I'm going. And to me, that gives the rhythm shape.
I like to define my rhythms knowing like cross phrasing. I don't know if you use that term, but cross phrasing would be like if you were doing a three count step to a four, four piece of music. So, you'd go, just say stamp, step, step.
That has three counts. One, two, three. So, if you were going one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
One, two, three, four, clap, clap, shove. That's what I would call cross phrasing because the one, two, three, repeated, one, two, three, four, five, six, and then you're going over the eight count bar, seven, eight, one. And that's what often gives rhythm in tap a really interesting sound is that cross phrasing.
So, I love to be able to explain that to people and often when you explain it, then they're like, ah, and then they can stay in time. So, those sort of things are very important to me and through my program, I'm very proud to say a lot of the students have a very good understanding of rhythm and time. And then when they go into a class with a professional tapper, even if they haven't been exposed to that vocabulary of steps and rhythms put together in that particular way or order, they can understand what's going on and they can pick it up.
I just want to say one other thing. As a beginner tapper, I think it's very important to understand that tap is such a diverse genre and all tap teachers teach in different ways and there's no one way of doing a step. So, like, if you did a paradiddle, for instance, heel, brush, step, heel.
In a regular paradiddle, you might go one-e-and-a, two-e-and-a, three-e-and-a, four-e-and-a. But you could take that same step and you could go heel, weight, weight, brush, ball step. So, it's the same step but performed in a totally different rhythm.
So, you could argue it's no longer a paradiddle but the form is the same, the rhythm has changed. So, you could go heel, brush, step, heel, heel, brush, step, heel. You know, that's a paradiddle, but you could go heel, brush, step, heel, heel, brush, step, heel, heel, brush, step, heel.
Do you get what I'm saying? So, the fundamental step is the same but often what is tricky in tap and what makes it nuanced and fun and more advanced is the rhythm that you're applying to the step. And then on top of that, the really tricky things where you're, you know, going up on your toes or wings or jumping over, things that require a higher level of skill in that regard. But for me, a lot of what makes great tapping is actually the rhythms, the use of accent applied to the rhythm to give it color and dynamic, the personality of the person tapping that they connect with the audience and make it look exciting.
Maia
Yeah. Now, I've mentioned this on the podcast before and what you're saying ties into this so much. I want to get your two cents on this.
I often feel torn between not introducing concepts to young students or beginning students that are too complicated. I don't want to confuse them, but also not wanting them to get from a young age kind of stuck in the idea of, you know, you count to eight and then you start again, for example. So, even outside of tap, can you maybe speak to what your opinion is on should we be challenging these younger students with cross phrasing so that they learn about that from a young age and are used to it? Or is that a more advanced skill and we should hold off and wait until they have the steps down to start to change up the rhythm?
Christine
I think with any dance genre, mostly with tap because you don't often have as large tap classes and oftentimes students don't come to tap at the same age. Whereas in a dance school, you know, everybody sort of seems to do ballet as their entry-level genre and so they're all moving together. Whereas tap people seem to take up later on and so it's very unusual to have a whole, unless you've got a massive dance school, to have a big class of kids all at the same level in tap. So, what I have is I've got this little thing I designed, it's called the Eight Levels of Tap.
And what I always say, and a lot of my clients use this in all their genres, is especially now, children don't have the same understanding that repetition is required to make something good. Because they live in an instant age where you push a button and everything, they think that if they've learnt it in class once, that they've perfected it. But learning it at the fundamental level, as you would know, is very different to having perfected it.
So my Eight Levels of Tap is, I can't remember them all exactly, but number one, the first level is, do you have the step? Just the step. Number two, do you have the correct rhythm of the step? Because like I just explained, you might be doing the step, but is it the correct rhythm? Next level, have you applied the accent where it needs to be? So for instance, I don't know if you call it a flap or a slap, so when you just go brush step and you're moving forward. Brush step, brush step, brush step.
Well the accent is on the step forward. Brush step, brush step, brush step, brush step. It's not brush step, brush step.
No, it's ba-da, ba-da, ba-da. That's the accent. If you're doing a paradiddle, or I would call heel brush step heel, you might be doing the accent, which is often the case in America, on the heel drop, not the heel dig.
So you guys tend to go boom-da-da-da, boom-da-da-da, boom, and you're starting with the heel drop, which gives it a more sort of funky sort of down into your hip sound. Whereas in Australia, we often start with the heel dig. So we go duck-a-duck-a-duck-a-duck-a-duck-a-duck-a-duck, so that the accent is on the heel dig, and it's a much brighter sound.
So that placement of the accent makes a huge difference. So for me, I've got step one, have you got the step? Number two, have you got the rhythm? Number three, have you got the right accent? Number four, what are your arms doing? Number five, what's the intent of the step? Like in tap, are you having a challenge? Like you're going, I can do this really fast, and then the next person answers. Or are you just at the beach, chilling around, chatting to your friends? What is the dynamic of the step? Is it fast? Is it being done slow? Is it bright? Is it heavy? What's the story you're trying to convey? So I've got all these different levels, and that enables me when I'm teaching a class, with the children who are more advanced, I can say to them, okay, you've got the step, but have you got the rhythm, the timing, the accent, the phrasing? What do you look like in the mirror? What's your face doing? What's your emotion? And I apply that to everything.
And the other thing I would say is children are often a lot, they can really pick things up, and every child is different, and you can't just say they're this age, and so they're capable of this thing. And with tap, you can sometimes, again, do two groups and give a slightly easier version to group A, and then you're just putting the rhythms over the top of each other. And so this group's doing this, and this group's doing a more advanced version.
Maia
Yes, that's brilliant. I think every teacher needs to hear that about the eight levels and make sure that at least mentally everyone's going through that checklist. It's not just about did you spin the right way or put your foot in the right place? How did you do it?
Christine
Yeah, how did you do it? And have you connected to the people watching you? Have you shown your joy? What's your intention? And especially with tap, I always say, you know, like I always remember, I'm sure you've heard of Baryshnikov, famous classical ballet dancer.
And I remember seeing him perform in Sydney many years ago when he was an older dancer. And I always remember he walked out onto the stage, and all he did was stand in fifth position with his arms in rabah, like down there, and he just stood, and he looked up, and you could hear a pin drop. And he didn't move for like probably two minutes.
He just stood there and was such a great example of doing the simple things with such attention to detail and such intention. So with my students, I talk about holding space. So looking confident and holding your space, no matter what your level of tap is.
Whether you're a beginner, or whether you're really super advanced, you should be able to walk onto the floor and hold your space. And even if you're just going stamp, do it with such a way that you go stamp. And that intent resonates out visually into the air just as much as it does through the floorboard.
So people are like, wow, that was amazing. You know?
Maia
Yeah. So this actually connects...Actually, I have about a bazillion more questions that I want to ask you, but I am going to wrap it up as much as I would love to just chat with you all night. But one more question that I wanted to ask, and I think that this is going to tie in so much with what you were just talking and overlap with it a lot. But I know Brent Street is famous, at least in America now because of technology and us getting the TV show about Brent Street being all about training commercial dancers, churning out a dancer that can be hired and be successful in the commercial world. So what would you say are just a couple of the core things that someone that wanted to be a commercial tap dancer needs to have?
Christine
I think commercial tap dancers, well, number one, they need to have a lot of tenacity and perseverance because there's not a lot of work for tap dancers. So they have to have an absolute passion for tap dancing. You have to just love tap dancing with the entire core of your being.
And I think you need to be someone who can generate their own work. You can't wait around for someone to hand you a job. Like, sure, there's 42nd Street and there's Anything Goes and a few musicals with tap dancing.
But really, all the people who make a real career out of tap dancing are people who have created their own vibe, their own thing. You know, like, yeah, like Savion Glover with Bring in the Noise, Bring in the Funk, with Dean Perry here in Australia with the Tap Dogs, Sarah Reich creating her whole, you know, she's got a whole thing that's her. And all of the tap dancers, they're all like that.
They've all created their own thing. You can't wait for someone to create something for you. You need to create something, either classes or a system people can use or, yeah, be on the circuit teaching tap or create your own show that you then put on for people to come and see.
We've got some guys here in Australia called the Tap Pack. Another great guy, Bill Simpson, he's got tutorials you can do online. So there's a lot of great people doing great things in tap at the moment.
And that's what I did with Tapatak Oz. I mean, I started it, I mean, I was teaching tap anyway. I've always been a professional tap teacher.
And then I created my system about 15 years ago. And you have to do something, you know. And so, like I said, if any of your listeners are interested, you just go to tapatak, T-A-P-A-T-A-K-O-Z.com I've got a beginner tap level and you can just download it and practice at home.
Practice makes perfect. If you buy anything of mine actually online, then you can go into my portal, my VIP portal, and there's heaps of tips and tricks about how to teach tap, different things you can do, adding umbrellas, canes, hats, boxes, drumsticks, things to make it fun for your students so they want to come to tap. And then you can marry that all with whatever style of tap you're doing in your own world.
So there are a huge amount of resources out there for people who want to learn tap, an enormous amount. But if you're wanting to be a professional tapper, providing the tutorials or being a tap dancer, my advice would be create your own sort of style, your own vibe, be very proactive and create something that people can either learn from you or you can go out and put on a show yourself because there's not a lot of opportunities to just, oh, I'll go and audition for a show. There's not a lot of that.
So you've got to be really passionate about it.
Maia
Thank you so much.
Christine
Oh, I've got one other thing.
On the 21st of January, 11 a.m. here in Brisbane, I'm going to be doing a Tap Teachers Mentor Program. It's a two-hour Zoom session and I'm just giving teachers ideas about how to teach tap well. So if you have any listeners who want to jump on that, it's just like a Zoom sort of PowerPoint vibe for two hours and the tickets are available on StickyTickets.
So just go to StickyTickets.com and just search Christine Denny, the Tap Teachers Mentor or whatever, and it comes up.
Maia
Oh, beautiful. Yes, I will share that for sure. That's wonderful. Thank you for all the resources. So I feel like you had a lot of quotable moments already that I can quote you. But do you have a favorite quote from someone else that you would like to share to close?
Christine
Oh, my favorite quote, I can't remember it exactly, but well, one of them, one of my favorite quotes is happiness is an inside job.
Maia
Oh, nice. I love that.
Christine
Not necessarily tap related. And the other one is don't follow the path, create your own path and let other people follow you. So I think, and I think in tap dance, that's really important, like learn all your basics, put the time in, but love it, do it because you love it. And talking about adults, I actually had an adult come and do an exam in my program last week.
And I was really crying at the end because he was like, you know, 24 years old and just the joy of experiencing tap dancing. So I say to anyone out there who's a beginner, jump in. If you've always wanted to tap dance, and I'll tell you from sitting on airplanes all over the world, I think 90% of the world's population has always wanted to try tap dancing.
Now is the time to do it because there are so many resources and so many incredible people on social media, websites where you can do lessons and in-person lessons you can go and do. Don't worry about being the best, worry about being joyful in your expression of tap dance.
Maia
Hey, everyone, it's Maa back again with a little post-interview wrap up.
My goodness, can we all give a big thank you to Christine again for joining us on this episode. I'm not a tap expert, as we know now, but it still filled me with so much joy and excitement to talk to such a tap legend. And I hope that all of you tappers and non-tappers can appreciate what we all just got to experience listening to this interview. Thank you again to Christine.